In This Issue

You’ve heard of the books and films about The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? Well, the Newmark J-School has the traveling mugs.

In a new series called Mugshots, we’re taking pictures of our alums holding the school’s colorful ceramic cups in the newsrooms where they work and showcasing the photos on our website and in social media posts. The image above shows no less than seven grads currently employed by The Wall Street Journal: Kathryn Lurie, ’08; Natalia Osipova, ’12; Katie Honan, ’10; Joseph Walker, ’09; Aisha Al-Muslim Harris, ’09; Rachael Levy, ’14; and Kimberly Chin, ’17. A video shot by our in-house production team at the annual Job & Internship Fair in October features recruiters speaking about why they want to hire our students.

As we get ready to launch our 12th class of graduates into their journalism careers, the Newmark J-School is proud of how far our alums have come. Take Melissa Noel, ‘12, who’ll be representing you as alumni speaker at the Class of 2018 commencement on December 14. She has distinguished herself as an award-winning journalist and television host who has blazed her own trail covering underreported stories from the Caribbean. In this Fall 2018 issue of the Alumni Newsletter, you can read about the many other professional accomplishments and personal milestones your Newmark J-School peers have racked up in the past few months.

I’d like to remind you that the next January Academy enrichment series will run from Jan. 7-24, 2019 with a lineup of more than 30 classes that are open to alums at reduced rates. You can start registering on Monday, Dec. 3. Look for the special alumni discount code in your email on Sunday.

As always, we want to share what you’ve been up to, so please keep in touch. If you’re interested in teaming up with fellow alumni at your workplace to participate in our Mugshots series, please let me know and I’ll arrange to have you photographed with our mugs. We’ll even buy you coffee to fill them.

The 3rd annual Stephen B. Shepard Prize for Investigative Reporting

The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY will honor a graduate with a $5,000 Stephen B. Shepard Prize for Investigative Reporting, funded by The Tow Foundation.

*Alums who graduated from any of our J-School programs from 2007 to 2017 are eligible to nominate themselves or a classmate for this prize, provided the work was published in any medium in 2018. Deadline is Dec. 20, 2018.

The Newmark J-School Alumni Board Wants You!

We are reestablishing the alumni board. If you are interested in helping improve the engagement between alumni and the school, we invite you to join. For more information, contact Cesar R. Bustamante Jr.,’11, at crbustamantejr@gmail.com

Alumni Updates

ON THE MOVE

Eduardo Acquarone, EJ ’15, started a PhD program in Communication Sciences at the ISCTE-IUL in Lisbon, Portugal, where he’ll investigate the effects of immersive journalism.

Alissa Ambrose, ’11, was promoted in September from senior photo editor to deputy director of multimedia and creative at STAT.

Jessica Bal,’15, started working with Susan Meiselas, a documentary photographer with Magnum Photos, managing her digital archive of 40+ years’ work.

After interning at Tech Insider/Business Insider for six months, Prachi Bhardwaj, ’17, joined City and State New York as its first technology reporter.

Rebecca Bratek, ’14, was hired as a senior editor at Factal, a new journalism-tech startup that verifies and digests breaking news for companies.

When she participates in these events as a speaker, she says she likes to demonstrate by her words and actions that good journalists do their research, prepare for their interviews with sources, are fair, and seek to find the truth. She most enjoys staying updated on the forefront of technology advances. “I’m very fortunate to interview sources and attend events where the topic is, for the most part, the future, and not the past,” Cruz says.

Left to right: Adi Barreto, senior account executive at Textio, and Claudia Cruz, ’08, at the “Embracing Intersectionality in Tech” panel in Oakland, CA.

Kudos

Jessica Bal, ’15, was selected to attend the 2018 Double Exposure Film Festival in October as a Fledgling Fund Fellow, an opportunity for journalists focused on reproductive rights reporting.

Alexandra Boothe, ’17, received the awards for “Best Editor” and “Student Choice Award ” at the CUNY Film Festival for her short documentary “Mixed Feelings.”

2016 alums Joaquin Cotler and Michael O’Brien are wrapping up a radio documentary about the tech industry’s incursion into Puerto Rico’s post-Maria recovery for a new and unnamed podcast that will be produced by Futuro Media.

Kizzy Cox, ’12, (far left in photo above) moderated the Empowering Women in Media panel organized by the non-profit Positive Women United on October 19. The diverse group of panelists included (left to right) Simone Swink, executive broadcast producer of Good Morning America; Angela Ellis, former content producer and programming executive for Good Morning America; and Klenimber Torres, filmmaker and CEO of Cosmos Entertainment.

Dale W. Eisinger, ’10, received a grant from the Institute for Policy Studies’ Economic Hardship Reporting Project for a story he is working on about the application of forensic anthropology to the migrant crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border.

In addition to teaching in the English Department at Borough of Manhattan Community College and at Lehman College, Dmitry Kiper, ’07, is a painter. He is the 2018 fall resident at the Con Artist Gallery & Collective on the Lower East Side, where his paintings have been exhibited seven times.

Pauliina Siniauer, ’17, is a finalist for The Food Sustainability Media Award 2018. You can vote for her story, “A trashcan lady is now feeding the neighborhood,” in the “Written Journalism and Unpublished” and “Best of the Web” categories.

Caroline Shin, ’16, expanded her project, Cooking with Granny™, into a video and event series, where diverse immigrant grandmothers cook family recipes and tell cultural stories.

Linda Villarosa,’13, New York Times Magazine contributing writer and City College of New York assistant professor of journalism, is working on her book, Under the Skin: Race, Inequality, and Health of a Nation, which will be published by Doubleday in 2020. She was also awarded a Poynter Fellowship in Journalism.

Alumni met with Dean Sarah Bartlett and Associate Dean Andrew Mendelson in September to discuss the future of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Angela Hill, ’07, (left) was part of a panel, “Tools and Skills for Today’s Journalists,” sponsored by the Georgetown University Society of Professional Journalists’ chapter and Ida B. Wells Society in Washington, D.C.

Mariana Keller, ’10, was a fellow in the East-West Center’s 2018 China-U.S. Journalists Exchange program, where she interviewed Song Ru’an, deputy commissioner of the People’s Republic of China Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong.

Class of 2017 alumnae Nicole Rothwell and Vicki Adame caught up over drinks and tacos at Wallace Whisky Bar in Mexico City. Vicki is living in Mexico City and Nicole was there for a live taping of the political podcast, “In The Thick.”

Alissa Ambrose, ’11, deputy director, multimedia and creative at STAT, won the “Most Creative Costume” award at the Boston Globe Halloween party for her “bad stock photo of a doctor” costume.

Helina Selemon,’15, won the costume contest for her Disco Kitty outfit at the Alumni Halloween Happy Hour at Printers Alley on October 25. (Photo: Sasha Fountain, ’16)